The Academic Dental Careers Fellowship Program: a pilot program to introduce dental students to academia

The Academic Dental Careers Fellowship Program (ADCFP) was established in 2006 by the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) and the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) with the financial support of the ADA Foundation to encourage dental students to consider careers in dental education and to provide participating fellows with insights into academic life. The ADA Foundation provided funding during the 2006-07 academic year for eleven dental student fellows, who were paired with faculty mentors at their respective schools. Fellows and mentors attended a two-day retreat in the summer of 2006, and over the course of the subsequent year in dental school, the fellows with guidance from their mentors participated in preclinical laboratory, classroom, small-group, and clinical teaching experiences; designed and implemented a research project; developed a philosophy of education; completed career reflection essays; assembled a portfolio to represent their ADCFP activities and projects; conducted a series of interviews with faculty designed to expose students to roles, issues, and career paths in academic dentistry; and presented a synopsis of their experiences at the ADEA Annual Session in New Orleans in March 2007. The fellows and mentors completed midyear and end-of-year evaluations of the ADCFP in which feedback and recommendations were collected by telephone interviews and questionnaires. Fellows reported positive experiences and an increased interest in and understanding of academic careers. Mentors also evaluated the ADCFP positively and reported enhancements in their mentoring skills. This article describes the goals and format of the ADCFP, summarizes program evaluation data elicited from the fellows and mentors, and proposes recommendations for future fellowship classes.